Hello and welcome to the Levy Letter for Tuesday. I hope your days going well, and as always I hope you can join me for tonights Look North programme at half past six tonight.
Tonight well be taking a look at a new trend in healthcare. More than fifty thousand of us chose to travel abroad for medical treatment last year. So called health tourism is on the rise, we'll have a special report and meet the man who's spending his life savings on pioneering knee surgery in Spain. It's six weeks since toddler Zoe Chambers finally returned home after a Europe wide search for a donor heart to save her life. We'll find out how she's recovering and hear about a new fundraising campaign for other children with heart problems. With the start of the University term students are being warned that they are at greater risk of being killed or injured in house fires. It's a campaign being led by 2 students from Lincoln. And we'll find out why Lincoln has made it onto the new version of the monopoly board... beating off competition from Hull and Grimsby! Well have the weather for our region as always, its looking rather changeable from where I am. Well have the latest forecast on the programme tonight. Thats all at half past six on BBC One. Thank you for all the comments weve had recently on the programme. We had a lot of emails and messages yesterday about whether we should all have our DNA recorded in a national database. Its a topic that got a lot of you talking, a lot of comments fiercely for and against. Thank you for all of those. Remember, if you have anything to say about the programme, or if you want to get your comments read while were on air, you can email us on [EMAIL PROTECTED] We read and listen to all your comments of course. Students Well Ive mentioned some education stories in the letter recently, and heres another slightly controversial one I think. See what you think of this A new study claims that students in England spend less time studying than students in Europe. From a survey of 15,000 students, it was calculated that the average was 26 hours of teaching and private study a week. You might think that sounds reasonable, but in comparison, students in Germany spend 35 hours a week studying, and in Portugal they average about 40 hours! One professor commented that 20 hours a week was classed as part time, so although most students are enrolled as in full time education, they actually study part time hours. If youre a student your blood might be boiling by now at the injustice of this report, or I suppose you might fully agree. Research also suggests that students on the continent do more paid work while at university as well, while still managing to rack up more hours of study. Boys also do less hours study time than girls as well. Im not sure if that will be a surprise or not. Well if you have anything to say on this, let me know what you think. If you want to let me know about anything to do with the letter, or if you have a story for the programme, or maybe if you have an event for a good cause and youd like a plug in the letter you can email me directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Acupuncture I know a lot of people suffer from back pain, and it seems sometimes well try anything to sort out our medical problems, including so called alternative therapies. Well they might be on to something according to new research from a German study that claims acupuncture is more effective than conventional therapies, yes you read that right. Apparently, half the patients treated with acupuncture needles felt benefits for months afterwards, while of those treated with conventional drugs and other Western therapies, only a quarter felt better. Thats astonishing isnt it? Over 1,000 people were involved in the study, where people were given conventional treatments, traditional acupuncture, and also fake acupuncture involving needles but not following traditional techniques. It sounds a bit gruesome and painful to me, but amazingly both the acupuncture the sham treatment produced good results, suggesting that any pin prick might give pain relief benefits, regardless of positioning and depth. It sounds very strange to say that sticking needles in you might reduce pain, but there you go. Of course Id proceed with caution and not head for the sewing needles yourself, this study was carried out by medical professionals! Well thats it from me for today. Join me tonight for Look North at half past six on BBC One, and have a good day. Bye for now. Peter And for the latest news and more where you live, go to: http://bbc.co.uk/humber and http://bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the BBC Look North newsletter, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/looknorthhull/newsletter/newsletter_index.shtml, enter your email address in the unsubscribe box. 1.94.4
